Shadowplay

by Laura Lam

  Cyan frowned at the mirror, touching it at random. She managed to pull up the map. “It’s Ellada,” she said. She made the area that was now Imachara bigger. Over the centuries, it had somehow mirrored the layout of the capital, and we could see its tangled streets as if we were birds flying overhead. But after a few more attempts, she gave up in defeat as well, and I put it back into the pack with a sigh. I’d hide it somewhere else later.

  “Well, at least we have it, versus someone else. I wonder if we’re safe now,” she said.

  “For a time, perhaps,” Drystan said. “If we really don’t want to be found, we should probably go take up in a tiny fishing village somewhere.”

  Or out of Ellada. Like we planned. Though was that still the plan? Drystan and I hadn’t discussed it in ages. It seemed more a nebulous possibility than a decided future.

  “Where we’d instantly be the “new strangers” in town?”

  “There is that. Safety in numbers.” He ran his hand through his blonde hair.

  “You two know why I left.” She gestured at the flames. “Why was Elwood looking for you?”

  I shot a glance at Drystan. He raised an eyebrow. “Tell her your side if you like, but leave me out of it. You’re a nice enough girl, Cyan, but my secrets are my own.”

  With that, he left. By the stiff way he held his shoulders, I could tell he was upset. There was a rightness to what I was doing. Like it had already happened and I was going through the motions like an automaton.

  “My name is not Sam,” I said.

  She said nothing.

  “For the last few months, I’ve gone by the name Micah. But that’s not my name, either. Or at least not the one I was given.” I slid the papers out from under the mattress. “If I show you this, will you tell me what a Shai is?”

  She pressed her lips together, pulling her hair over her shoulders and twisting it into a thick dark rope. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”

  The silence hung between us.

  Drystan had “borrowed” the Augur from Maske without his knowledge. Why, I wasn’t sure. He could be a bit of a magpie for shiny things. He’d give it back – but he wanted to prove he could take it without his old mentor noticing. Using my newly acquired sleight of hand, I had taken it from the bedside table and turned it on while she wasn’t looking. The mechanical beetle rested in my pocket, silent as could be. She told the truth. I turned it off.

  I passed her the folder. She opened it and read, trailing her fingers down the vertical columns of script.

  Her eyebrows rose, but she said nothing until she read the entire thing.

  “You’re a girl?” she said, and she looked at me like Drystan had the night I told him on the Sicion pier. She was trying to see the woman in me. I met her gaze steadily.

  “Not quite. Or rather, not only.”

  Her brow furrowed.

  I took a deep breath and decided to tell her.

  “I’m both.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “We had someone of both genders in the circus,” she said.

  My mouth fell open. “Are they still there?”

  “No. They left not long after they joined, but I don’t know why.”

  “Was that person in the freakshow?”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  I bit my lips. “I never was. I didn’t tell anyone in the circus what I was. Not until the very end.”

  “So Amon knows?”

  “He does.” I licked my lips. “Do you… care?”

  “Why should I care?”

  I smiled from ear to ear. I almost felt like crying.

  Her fingers toyed with a corner of the paper. “That must have been difficult for you. Raised as a girl, then to leave everything that you’ve known, to have to change who you are… hide who you are again…”

  “I haven’t thought of it quite like that. I’m still who I was before. But freer, despite all that’s happened.”

  She smiled. “Perhaps I should switch my skirts for trousers.”

  “And cut off all that hair? That’d be a tragedy.” I pulled out a strand of my shorn locks. “I still miss my long hair, sometimes.” And I did. Though I most definitely did not miss corsets and hated the one I still wore.

  She clutched her hair protectively and laughed. “True.” The smile faded. “Thank you for telling me. I promise you that it’ll go no further.” She passed the file back to me.

  I inclined my head and waited.

  “Alright. My end of the bargain. Close your eyes,” she said.

  I obeyed.

  “Think of your fondest memory and hold it close. Try and remember every detail.”

  My mind scrabbled in circles. What was my fondest memory?

  It came to me. My brother Cyril and I by the fireside one winter’s evening in the nursery. I was young, barely old enough to read. Five, six perhaps. Cyril, two years older, seemed so big and grown up. I was trying to read an old picture book of his, frowning and frustrated.

  Cyril put down his own adventure book and came over and read me the story, pointing out each word on the page as he did so. It was the tale of The Prince and the Owlish Man. The artwork had been beautiful printed watercolor paintings swirled through with black ink lines. The owlish man looked like death himself and frightened me. But Cyril’s presence comforted me. I leaned back against his torso, his voice reverberating against my ribs as he read. I remembered the crackle of the flames and the smell of smoke and furniture polish. I almost sighed with longing. The scene was so real in my mind’s eye. I wished I could step back into it, when my greatest difficulty was not being able to puzzle out the words on the page.

  “You’re remembering a boy. He’s close to you. A brother? Sandy hair. There’s a room with a marble fireplace. A painting of trees in a gilt frame. He’s reading to you. Prince Mael and the Owlish Man. You are warm and safe.”

  I opened my eyes and stared at her in horror. I felt dizzy, and the room wobbled.

  “How did you…?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, tears swimming in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “You can read anyone’s thoughts, all the time?” She could have learned so much from one careless thought…

  She shook her head. “It takes a lot of concentration. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but other times it comes out of nowhere. I try not to intrude. I have learned that people think such terrible things. Things they perhaps do not truly believe or would not do…”

  She trailed off, playing with the edge of the bed quilt, and I wondered whose thoughts she remembered. I tried to concentrate on her and see if I could read her mind. Maybe I could sense a flicker of an image – a tear falling down a woman’s cheek – but I could not be sure. I blinked, a headache throbbing at my temples, my stomach roiling with nausea.

  “That’s why the Glamour didn’t work on you?” I said, quietly.

  Cyan bent her head, silver dust from the Kymri Princess levitation falling to the floor. Her eyes were downcast, her fingers intertwined. She rubbed her thumb pads together. “You knew what you looked like. Both of you. That’s why it didn’t work.”

  “And that’s why you were a fortuneteller in the circus.”

  “Nay.” She shook her head. “I learned to read the tarot first, and nothing strange happened for years. But then a man came to have a reading and I had… a vision. My first one. What I saw didn’t make sense. The man gripped my hands so hard it hurt. He kept ordering me to tell him what I saw, over and over again. When I did, he nodded, threw some coins on the table, and left.”

  “What did he look like?” I focused on her again, but saw and sensed nothing. I felt a surge of disappointment.

  “I don’t remember what he looked like. When I try, his face is blurred, like the reflection in a puddle.” She shrugged. The wording of it mirrored how Anisa had described the second client of the Shadow. The same man?

  “What did you see?”


  “Flashes. Monsters. Chimaera. A woman with bat wings. A boy with a scaled face. Blue light. The sky on fire.” She shook her head. “Nonsense.”

  “You have no idea who he was?”

  She shook her head. “No. I asked around the circus, but no one else even saw him. After that, I started hearing or seeing things more often. I responded to others’ thoughts, thinking they spoke aloud. I learned who in the circus did not like me one bit. Or liked me too much. Sometimes, my dreams come true. Or my nightmares,” she whispered.

  “Nightmares?”

  She nodded. “The night before I left the circus I had a horrible dream. A circus accident. The animal trainer, Liam. Someone in the audience was going to frighten the lion. I told my mother I was going to go warn him. Plead for him to take the night off and not perform that day. My parents… they wouldn’t let me. Said it was only a dream or a dark spirit possessed me. They feared I was a Shai.

  “I let them convince me it had all been in my head. They took me away from the circus, saying that a day in the city would do me good.”

  Cyan was lost in the memory, her eyes unfocused. “They bought me chocolate limes. I remember the flavor. They took me to the Temnian Temple, and I prayed… I prayed so hard…”

  She swallowed. I covered the back of her hand with mine.

  “I fainted in the temple when it happened. And when I woke up, I ran back to the circus, leaving my parents behind.

  “It happened just as I’d seen it. Liam was dead, mauled by his lion. He loved that lion. Called him Pip. Pip was dead as well. They’d shot him, I think. They lay side by side, their bodies still warm.”

  Another flash of an image. Cyan, crying, her hands entangled in the lion’s tawny fur. A man and a woman pulling her away. My headache worsened.

  “My parents realized what had happened.” Her words thickened. “They said as soon as they could, they’d book passage back to Southern Temne and leave this godless land.”

  “So that was why you ran away.”

  She nodded.

  “Why come to Maske? He said you came to him just after you left.”

  “Did he?” She stared into the distance. “Can you keep a secret?”

  My mouth twisted. “I’ve had a fair amount of practice.”

  “After Liam, my mother and I fought. And I heard what she was thinking.”

  I said nothing, waiting for her to gather the courage to go on.

  “She thought that it was all my father’s fault, that it served her right for sleeping with a magician, to birth a cursed babe.”

  I blinked. Opened my mouth to ask the question, but she cut me off with a nod. “I don’t look half-Elladan. Maske doesn’t know.”

  My head spun. I thought back to Drystan’s hints that Maske had been a different man at the height of his power. “Well.”

  “Well indeed.” She chewed her lip.

  I searched for something to say. “Are you… different?” I asked.

  “Um. Were you not listening? I just told you I can read minds.”

  “Well, yes. But what about physically?”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “How often do you fall ill?”

  “Hardly ever. My f–father used to say I was hearty as an ox.” She smiled, but it faded. “Why?” She shifted closer on the bed, her dark eyes peering into mine. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “You might…” I swallowed. “You might be different from other…” I trailed off, not quite sure how to finish.

  “From other what?”

  “From other… humans.”

  She blinked. She started to laugh, and stopped when I didn’t join in.

  “Am I lying to you? You can check.” The thought of her peering into my mind frightened me, but I knew it was the only way she’d believe me.

  She closed her eyes, and I followed suit. I sent a small tendril of thought toward her that I knew she’d hear.

  We are Chimaera.

  I opened my eyes. She was staring at me, her lips parted. Her eyes rolled up in her skull and she fainted.

  The threatened headache bloomed in my skull, and I followed her into the dark.

  16

  THE NEW WAGER

  “Sometimes I cannot believe the anger and hatred I am capable of. These many years later, I still despise Taliesin with every thread of my being. I blame him for everything. For throwing my life away, for costing me my family and my livelihood. That anger was what drove me to the darkness where I lived for a long while. I stole and I cheated and I lied and I liked it. I learned just how evil I can be – all thanks to the evil of Taliesin. One day, I will get him back for how he hurt me. For now, I’ll nurse the hatred.”

  Jasper Maske’s personal diary.

  I awoke before Cyan did, clutching my head. I’d never fainted before coming to the theatre and now I’d fainted twice. After a few minutes, I felt better and splashed water on Cyan’s face and tapped her cheek gently. When she did not awaken, I went to fetch Drystan, terror growing within me. He was reading the history of the Great Grimwood. He closed the book when I entered, his fingertip marking the place.

  “Cyan’s fainted and she’s not waking up,” I said, dread rising in my stomach at the words. What if she was trapped in a vision? Or the vision had affected her physically? I followed Drystan up the stairs, feeling strange. I stumbled over a step. My stomach was in knots of fear for Cyan and yet almost… excitement.

  I might not be the only person who could do things that no one else could. And if Cyan and I were different, there were most likely others. I felt heady with the possibilities.

  Drystan knocked at Maske’s workshop. The sound of drilling ceased. Maske came to the door, pushing a pair of greenish goggles up on his forehead. His face was smeared with black oil. I searched his face for echoes of Cyan’s features, and I found them in the line of his nose and the curl of his lip.

  “Yes?” he asked, annoyed at the interruption.

  “Your medic bag is still in the kitchen, right? Where is it again?”

  “The cupboard to the right of the cooker. Why?” He peered at us.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Drystan lied smoothly. I wondered why he lied. Perhaps not to worry him? “Cyan’s delicate derriere needs the bruising cream.”

  Maske chuckled. “Well, let me know if it grows worse. It’s my fault she was hurt.” His face creased. “I’ll be down soon for tea. My turn to scrounge something up, more’s the pity for you all.”

  “I’m sure we’ll survive, at least,” Drystan joked. While Drystan and Maske spoke, I craned my neck, trying to see past Maske into his workshop. He spied my blatant attempt and raised an eyebrow, leaning back to show me. Mirrors. I should have known they would still be there. He smirked and closed the door. The drilling resumed.

  “I still want to know what he’s doing in there,” I said as we trotted down the hall.

  “And you’ll find out when he’s ready, Micah. How many times have I said this to you now?”

  I snapped my mouth shut. He didn’t usually snap at me – he was definitely cross with me for being so frank with Cyan.

  Grabbing the medic bag, we dashed to the loft. Cyan lay on my bed, arms akimbo, hair tangled about her face.

  Drystan peeled an eyelid back, showing the whites of her eyes. Plucking the smelling salts from the medic bag, he waved them under her nose. She groaned, turning her head away.

  He tapped her lightly on the cheeks. “Come on, Cyan. Wake up now.” To me he said, “What happened?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Isn’t it always?” he asked, more to himself than to me.

  Cyan’s eyes fluttered. Drystan helped her sit up and passed her a glass of water, brushing the hair from her face.

  Her forehead crinkled. “My head,” she moaned, pressing her hands to her temples. “Are you meant to dream when you faint?”

  “What did you dream?” I asked, alarmed. Drystan noticed the sharp tone of my voi
ce.

  “I dreamed of a woman with great dragonfly wings. Tattoos on her face and hands. She was crying. She missed someone. Wanted to find him. More than anything…” She shook her head. “It’s fading, like water through a sieve. Just a dream. But it was so clear… it was almost as though I was her…”

  My blood drained from my face. Drystan mouthed “damselfly” at me, and I shook my head, as though I were just as confused as he was. I glanced at where the damselfly disc lay hidden beneath the loose papers on the table by my bed.

  Maybe Anisa wanted to sway Cyan to her cause as well, whatever that may be.

  “I’m fine. How embarrassing, to faint!” She laughed, unconvincingly. She smoothed her crumpled skirt with her hands. “I think I’ll go to my room. You’ve given me a lot of think about, Sam. Or should I call you Micah? Or Gene?”

  “Either Sam or Micah,” I said, ignoring the way Drystan’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not really Gene. Not anymore.” My throat closed. Was that girl who climbed trees and shirked piano lessons well and truly gone? Debutante turned runaway turned murderer.

  Cyan moved like a drunken woman, stumbling and holding onto the wall for support. At the door, she paused, as though she would say something. But she carried on, leaving us in silence.

  Drystan crossed his arms.

  “There’s no point in being mad. It’s already done. And we can trust her. She knows some of my secrets, but I’ve learned some of hers as well.”

  “And?”

  “And they’re not mine to tell. Had you stayed and told her something of yourself, you’d know them too.”

  He waved a hand. “So you’re saying we shouldn’t worry about her?”

  Only if she invades our thoughts. I tried sending the thought to him, wondering if he would hear it.

  Drystan frowned at me.

  “Why are you squinting at me like that?”

  I sighed. “Never mind. No, I don’t think we need to worry about her. She’s lost everything, as we have. She’s merely trying to pick up the pieces.”

  “If you say so,” he said, folding me into his arms. I rested my hands on the wings of his shoulder blades and he placed his chin on my shoulder. He did not say anything, and after a time, I met his lips with mine.